Fudging the jobless numbers — and scamming the voters — to aid reelection campaigns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve always cautioned people against believing what they see in the mainstream media.  Today’s media-gasm on the drop in the unemployment rate is only the latest example of what I’m talking about:

The United States created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to a near three-year low, giving a boost to President Barack Obama.

Nonfarm payrolls jumped 243,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, as factory jobs grew by the most in a year. The jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent – the lowest since February 2009 – from 8.5 percent in December.

The gain in employment was the largest since April and it far outstripped the 150,000 predicted in a Reuters poll of economists. It hinted at underlying economic strength and lessened chances of further stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

“More pistons in the economic engine have begun to fire, pointing to accelerating economic growth. One of the happiest persons reading this job report is President Obama,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands.

The payroll gains were widespread – from retail to temporary help, and from construction to manufacturing – an indication the recovery was becoming more durable.

A survey of households showed the unemployment rate declined even as new job seekers flooded into the labor force. Economists had expected the jobless rate, which has now fallen 0.8 percentage point since August, to hold steady.

Never mind that we need 150K – 200K new jobs each month JUST TO BREAK EVEN and make up for the retirements and deaths that happen.  You can just look around your community and tell there is NO economic rebound.  Here in southeastern North Carolina, a major employer that has been in operation locally for 35 years is shutting its doors and laying off HUNDREDS of employees.  A good friend of mine who works with the state Employment Security Commission says their local offices are busier with unemployment claims than ever before.

So what’s going on?  Rush told us over a year ago that BarryO and Miss Nancy would start fudging the economic data right before the 2012 vote so as to distract and pacify angry taxpayers.  From all indications, that prediction is looking like gold.  Check out Tyler Durden’s take at ZeroHedge:

 A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo:1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Surprise, surprise! We’re being scammed by lying politicians right in front of the election.  It’s awfully easy to produce a lower percentage figure when you cut the size of the sample being used to calculate said percentage.